Maryland’s Higher Education Commission faces a lawsuit brought by a civil rights advocacy group that alleges the state’s treatment of its traditionally black institutions promote segregation and unfair education opportunities.

The Baltimore Sun reports the lawsuit, filed in 2006 and amended four times, says the state under-funds traditionally black colleges, causing them to lag behind the state’s other institutions. Projects at the state’s traditionally black schools, lawyers for the prosecution argued, took two or three times as long to fund than those at the other schools. A U.S. District judge heard arguments in the case and will decide whether or not to allow it to proceed.

The state’s assistant attorney general says the case should be thrown out because the advocacy group hasn’t been able to prove the discrepancies in funding were intentional or rooted in segregation.